China's "newly pugnacious" foreign policy is "losing friends worldwide", the US ambassador to Beijing argued in a cable last February.

European diplomats were "most vocal", although Indian and Japanese counterparts voiced similar complaints, Jon Huntsman wrote. In other dispatches US diplomats quote unhappy African officials.

In his cable, entitled "Stomp around and carry a small stick: China's new 'global assertiveness' raises hackles, but has more form than substance", he accused Beijing of "muscle-flexing, triumphalism and assertiveness", but added that some observers saw it as rhetoric designed to appeal to Chinese public opinion. "Numerous third-country diplomats have complained to us that dealing with China has become more difficult in the past year," Huntsman reported. His examples included:

■ A British diplomat saying that Chinese officials' behaviour at the Copenhagen climate change summit was "shocking" and so rude and arrogant that the UK and French complained formally.

■ The Indian ambassador to Beijing requesting closer co-operation with the US because of "China's more aggressive approach".

■ Japanese diplomats complaining that officials were "aggressive and difficult" during summit preparations.

■ Another Japanese official describing rising tensions in the East China Sea, saying that "the increased aggressiveness of Chinese 'coastguard' and naval units… had provoked 'many dangerous encounters' with Japanese civilian and self-defence force ships".

The official said Japan had not reported all the incidents. The issue became public in the autumn when Japan arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing boat for ramming a coastguard vessel near disputed islands.

The cable refers to another dispute that later broke into the open. A Norwegian diplomat said Oslo was unhappy with the trend of bilateral relations, citing the lack of progress in human rights discussions and referring to the jailing of writer Liu Xiaobo. China reacted angrily when Norway's Nobel committee gave the peace prize to Liu recently.

The main tensions appear to be with China's neighbours or established western powers. In several cables US diplomats note China's growing influence in Latin America and Africa. One cable notes the Kenyan ambassador stressing the benefits of China's role on the continent and saying Africa has nothing to gain if the US and China co-operate.

Juliu Ole Sunkuli "claimed that Africa was better off thanks to China's practical, bilateral approach to development assistance and was concerned that this would be changed by 'western' interference… Sunkuli said Africans were frustrated by western insistence on capacity building, which translated, in his eyes, into conferences and seminars. They instead preferred China's focus on infrastructure and tangible projects."

Other cables suggested some African diplomats felt "a degree of suspicion and resentment" about China's role. A Nigerian official suggested poorer countries were "coerced" into aid-for-resources deals. Elsewhere a Moroccan diplomat commented: "China will never play the role of a global leader if it treats its trade partners so poorly."

Assessing US-China relations at the start of 2009, the then US ambassador to China, Clark Randt, saw growing similarities in relations with the rest of the world. "By the end of the next 30 years China should no longer be able to portray itself as the representative of lesser developed countries. This does not mean that it will necessarily identify with the more developed, mainly western countries; it well might choose to pursue some uniquely Chinese path… Even so, China's growing position as a nation increasingly distinct from the less developed world may expand our common interests." It was possible China "will come to be identified by the average citizen in less developed countries not as 'one of us' but as 'one of them'."

The WikiLeaks embassy cables release has produced a lot of stories but does it produce any useful data? We explain what it includes and how it breaks down - plus you can download the key data for every cable